


Wishes

by Esteliel



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Morning After, Morning Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-17 13:51:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16975785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/pseuds/Esteliel
Summary: The jinn's arms surround him, and for the first time in his life, Salim doesn't wish for anything.





	Wishes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladygray99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladygray99/gifts).



Salim wishes he were better at this.

He’s resting in a bed, and for the first time since he arrived in this grey city of dirt and never-ending rain, he feels warm. He knows that he’s still there even before he opens his eyes. _He_ —the jinn, the taxi driver, the man in the dust-colored sweater, with eyes of fire and with skin that was so warm that when Salim touched his hand, he could feel the heat flow through him.

Now, pressed skin to skin against the jinn’s body, the bed smelling of sweat and sex and desert dust, he is overwhelmed for a moment by a yearning for the heat of the sun and the silence of the desert.

He turns in the jinn’s embrace. The man doesn’t wake, although he stirs a little when Salim presses himself against his chest. His arm comes to rest around his waist, and Salim presses himself gratefully closer, his face buried against the man’s neck, his tongue darting out for the tiniest taste of the salt on the jinn’s skin. Against his thigh, Salim can feel his cock, soft now. It brings back a memory so powerful that he feels his body aching all over again, the heat of the jinn still blazing in his veins.

He exhales, his lips against the jinn’s neck. Then he closes his eyes again, wishing that he could wake like this forever.

When he wakes again, the city is no longer quiet. From below, he can hear the honking of cars, the loud sirens, the chaotic sounds of a city that doesn’t care one bit about the existence of Salim from Oman. This city wants him here just as little as Mr. Blanding does.

For a moment, his chest tight with shame, Salim wishes he were still at home. He wishes he weren’t such a disappointment.

Then he realizes that the bed is empty, and that the warm body he has rested next to is gone.

He is not surprised. What does surprise him is that next, he hears a sound. When he opens his eyes and looks up, he finds the jinn still in the room, half-dressed—holding Salim’s passport in his hands.

Any other man would have jumped up and wrestled the man for his passport, or called the police, perhaps.

Salim can’t look away from those blazing eyes even now, the emotions curdling in his stomach burning to ashes as heat rises inside him once more.

He thinks of the way the jinn’s beard felt against his shoulder. He thinks of the finger in his mouth, the taste of the jinn’s skin, the ache of his body yielding to the jinn’s sizable cock, the lovemaking that lasted for hours until there was no thought left but the ecstasy of touching him.

Salim can’t say what he wants. There’s a short, burning moment of betrayal, but it doesn’t run as deep as the painful realization that the man’s about to leave, never to return.

And that, too, doesn’t really hurt, because Salim didn’t expect more. This was already more than he’d dared to hope for. To have this night... It won’t be enough when he’s back in the Panglobal office, or when he’s back home, where he has to bear his brother-in-law’s disappointment.

But it’ll be something. One bright thing, as brilliant and pure as fire, to cling to when he wakes in the middle of the night, his chest so tight with things he can’t name that he clutches his hand over his mouth because what wants to come out would be enough to wake the whole house.

The jinn’s still looking at him. Salim thinks of all the things he could do. Should do. Thinks of all the things he wants and knows he’ll never have.

And then he pulls the blanket down. He’s not a bold person. He’s not a courageous person. He’s not who he should be to make his brother-in-law proud.

But the jinn before him, still half undressed, is everything Salim has ever wanted. The memory of his touch lingers as if a brand has been pressed to his soul. He is more than Salim has ever dared to wish for, save for those rare, almost-forgotten dreams that come to him sometimes at the break of morning, when he will linger in a languid dream for a moment that stretches out to an eternity: when fingers find his and entwine and he is held, a stranger whose features he cannot remember touching him with such love and such hunger that it takes long moments after Salim wakes before he realizes that there are no touches, no bruises, the memory of lips against his already dwindling until the dream itself becomes something he imagined having.

Sometimes, in those rare moments before morning, half-drunk on dreams, Salim wishes he could live in those dreams forever.

Salim swallows. This night was no dream. The jinn’s grip on his hip has left bruises.

And with the man in front of him, looking at him, it feels as if all the rest of his life was the dream. Now, for the first time, he has found something that is real—as bright and as endurable as a diamond forged in the fires of the earth.

He wishes he could stay in this not-dream forever.

He knows he can’t. Reality has already intruded—it’s there, in the shape of his passport held in the jinn’s hand, this act of betrayal that should have him up on his feet, shouting. Instead, he concentrates on the warmth of the sheets beneath him and holds out his hand. Through the window, sunlight falls in. It is grey as well, filtered through the layer of city grime that stains the window.

Then the jinn steps forward, and Salim has no eyes for anything but the way muscles shift beneath skin as the jinn pulls off his clothes.

The man takes his time as he joins Salim on the bed, his hands exploring him with the same confidence as before. Once again Salim arches when fire fills him, the heat of the desert burning away the sounds and the stink of the city until there is nothing but the press of the jinn inside him. The pleasure is so sharp that it is nearly painful. He writhes, unable to form words, focusing on keeping his eyes open, because he knows that after this, the jinn will take his passport and go, leaving Salim with nothing but the memory of these moments searing into his skin.

It feels as if it lasts for hours. Every roll of the jinn’s hips against his own makes him tremble, the jinn’s fingers drawing sounds from him no one has heard before. The fire in the jinn’s eyes burns so bright that even as he is pulled up, impaled on the jinn’s cock, he thinks that he cannot possibly survive this, that pleasure this intense will burn him. Even so, he works himself up and down while clutching at the jinn’s sweat-slick shoulders, his aching thighs straining.

And then there is nothing but the heat and the ecstasy of the jinn’s cock opening him up, filling him, the press of it inside him making him tremble before everything becomes liquid fire.

When he can think again, he is slumped against the jinn’s chest, both of them slick with sweat. His mouth tastes of the salt-and-smoke of the jinn’s skin. The jinn’s beard is both scratchy and soft at once against his cheek.

Salim feels at peace. For the first time in a life that has always made him painfully aware of not being what people want him to be, he is at peace. The jinn is still inside him, slowly softening. Salim trails his lips along the tendon at his shoulder.

The jinn’s arms surround him, and for the first time in his life, Salim doesn’t wish for anything. He is who he should be. He is where he should be.

And in this quiet moment of contentment, it doesn’t matter that he knows that it won’t last. All that matters is the heavy exhaustion of his limbs and the jinn’s heat against his skin.

He simply is.

Later, when the jinn rises and walks back to Salim’s abandoned clothes, Salim watches with the same calmness.

“I do not grant wishes,” the jinn says again, turning back to look at him, Salim’s sweater clutched in his hand.

“I know,” Salim says simply.

The jinn looks at him again. For a long moment, he doesn’t move, the fire flickering in his eyes.

Then, one by one, his fingers loosen, until the sweater at last drops to the floor again.


End file.
